A competent employee adaptation program is as important for his career as his natural abilities and acquired skills and knowledge.

Onboarding plan is a powerful team management tool. It helps the manager receive confirmation that the right choice has been made and quick results in the form of high checks.

In this article I will tell you only some of the secrets and technologies of building a coherent and cohesive team using the example of a sales department.

I will choose for you what most influences the mood of the new employee. We will share the rest of the tips about building a sales department without greed.

In business you need fast be wrong, unsuitable people should be quickly fired. Well, when building a sales department, you need to make mistakes twice as fast. That's why our competitions for the position of sales manager are held once a week!

We organized everything in such a way as to look at as many candidates as possible, allow them to quickly make all possible and impossible mistakes and identify the best of the best among the masses.

Why do we recruit sales managers every week? Do you think we have staff turnover? No!

This is due to several reasons:

• There are never too many sellers;
• We are constantly improving recruitment technology, personnel adaptation and improving sales technologies;
• The level of applicants on the labor market is low, and even if 60 applicants come to the competitive selection, we may not select anyone.

So, every week our company begins the adaptation period for a new sales department employee.

The employee adaptation program in our company was constantly changing and supplemented, but it was always clear, structured and gave us the desired result.

Already on day 3-4 of adaptation a new employee of the LiftMarketing sales department can conclude transactions for large checks.

The adaptation program is the basis for great results for your employees

How to make sure that already in the first week of his work in the company, a new employee becomes part of the team and is sincerely ready to achieve ambitious goals with you and share your values?

After analyzing the annual dynamics in our company, I came to the conclusion that our sales managers will start their first successful sales as soon as possible, under one condition:

in the first week they must undergo training or internal training.

What do we teach in these trainings?

4 main topics to discuss with new sales employees during the adaptation period

1. Company history and product value

If you want your “sales people” to start selling as quickly as possible and for big checks, they should understand, What they will sell.

Your task is also to build their trust in you and your company. Let them understand and believe that your company is the place where real success awaits them.

In this training, pay great attention to telling the story of the company, the quality and mission of the product, the team, and tell us about the clients.

Present the new employee with facts and figures about the company. In such a way that he understands absolutely everything without exception. Take the time to do this training, it will help him become an expert in what he is going to sell to Clients.

Create the feeling that he has already become part of your team and has his own important area of ​​responsibility.

2. A look at the profession of a sales manager through the prism of what you love

A person strives to do what he loves. Unfortunately, most people come into sales from other areas. And they never dreamed of being in sales. Our universities do not have “Cold Calling” or “Field Sales” departments.

This is why it is necessary to “fall” a beginner into falling in love with sales as a vocation. Remember: a person gives 100% to his work only if he enjoys his activities. We are what we do.

3. Fundamental Selling Skills

To build a house, you need a solid foundation. The higher the house, the stronger the foundation should be. I will now tell you about the foundation in sales.

Not everyone can sell.

Only those who have built a high-quality foundation of the necessary sales skills can sell.

We help our “recruits” build such a foundation in the first 7 days of the adaptation period, then competencies and experience are superimposed on this foundation.

Fundamental skills* for working in sales:

1. Thirst for money.
2. Passion.
3. Perseverance.
4. Speed.
5. The desire for self-improvement.
6. Speech.
7. Self-motivation.
8. Discipline.
9. Ability and desire to serve people.
10. Public speaking skills.
11. Ability to rest.
12. Po@uism (about this skill only in person;)).

* from English skills - skills.

4. Sales stages

During the adaptation period, new employees become familiar with the company, product, regulations and, of course, sales scripts. But before starting to work with clients, every sales manager must understand what stages a sale consists of.

Sales stages— a canvas for tracking work efficiency. It is impossible to bring a client to the conclusion of a transaction without understanding the specifics of individual stages of sales.

If your “fighters” work based on personal experience or intuition, you are unlikely to be able to understand where and at what stage they make mistakes, and you lose clients (!).

Conclusion:

Be honest with your team, make them part of your business.

Make every effort so that they do not do sales, but do what they love.

Help them build a solid base for developing their competencies and increasing their expertise.

This way you will be able to build a team that you trust as you trust yourself.

While periodically recruiting personnel for clients of my services, I noticed that many companies often lack a competent induction program for new employees. As a rule, the “adaptation” of a newcomer is limited to a demonstration of the workplace, a ceremonial presentation of meager documentation “for independent study” and parting words: “If anything is not clear, please contact me.” Then the “fresh frame” is left to its own devices.

Practice shows that when an employee does not know 100% “what is the right thing to do” in an organization, he does “the best he can” and what he thinks will be correct. And if his considerations and “what is best” turn out to be incorrect, the company risks numerous disruptions in work, defects, losses, and in some situations even customer departure and a “bad reputation” among business partners.

As popular wisdom says, most mistakes occur for two reasons: “I thought...” and “I didn’t think...”.

As a result, the manager has to be distracted from solving his managerial tasks, spend time eliminating “shoals” and “distributing carrots,” roll up his sleeves and get down to teaching “the mind.”

But a spoon is dear to dinner!

On the contrary, in enterprises where personnel work with “maximum efficiency,” management does not expect a “miracle” from recruits, no matter how excellent experience, ingenuity and initiative they have. Such organizations act preventively: they have in advance an approved and time-tested plan for adaptation and training of new employees, according to which every employee hired by the company is “trained”. This helps to avoid ridiculous mistakes in the work of interns, practically eliminate the situation of “I wanted the best, but it turned out as always,” speed up the time for obtaining the maximum return from the work of newly hired personnel and significantly save the nerves and time of the manager and the organization’s money.

And today I want to bring to your attention an approximate “skeleton” of such an adaptation plan that you can modify to suit your organization. For convenience, the training program is divided into small thematic blocks, each of which contains a description of possible tasks for trainees, as well as explanations for the employee responsible for training personnel.

Briefing about the company, employees, clients and conditions of working with clients

First, the new employee is given a brief briefing about the company and its rules, which may contain the following information:

• About the company: when and by whom it was founded; main areas of activity; advantages and differences of working with the company; geography of the company's activities; locations of offices, warehouses, etc.
• About clients: market segments that the company is focused on; sources for finding new clients; who can be the decision maker (decision maker) in the potential customer’s organization, etc.
• General conditions for working with clients: document flow; minimum application amount; terms of payment and discounts; rules for delivery and acceptance of finished products; delivery terms, etc.
• Interaction of employees within the company: with which employees of the company and on what issues will the newcomer interact.
• Employee work schedule, workplace, payroll scheme, etc.

After you have hired a new employee for an internship, you need to draw up a sales manager training plan, following which the new employee will undergo an internship in the company. In order to get a good salesperson, you need to clearly understand what knowledge and skills need to be conveyed to the employee and within what time frame.

Where to start preparing?

The first thing you need to do is create a sales manager training plan. The duration of the internship depends on many factors:

• product specifics;
• features of sales technology;
• the number of additional related responsibilities;
• need for software training.

On average, the internship duration is from 1 to 3 months. During this time, the new employee must be able to:

• Get acquainted with the corporate culture and history of the company;
• Explore the product;
• Study the technology and sales techniques of this product;
• Master auxiliary sales tools;
• Gain basic customer service skills.

But there are exceptions to the preparation time. For example: one-time promotions, sales of one specific product, or cold calling clients using a ready-made script. These types of sales will require no more than one week of preparation.

Who should train new employees?

Responsibility for the quality of training of a new employee often lies on the shoulders of the manager, but this task can be entrusted to any experienced sales manager. It is very important that the person who is training the new salesperson has the motivation to do so, which is very often a problem.

An important factor in training a sales manager on the part of the manager is objectivity. You should not impose your tricks and stereotypes on a new employee; over time, he himself will adapt his own sales techniques. Advice from experienced people may not only not help, but also confuse a beginner. This is precisely why sales and customer service standards are needed. These are like ideal patterns of behavior that a new sales manager should focus on.

How to create a training plan for a sales manager?

Once you have a timeline for sales preparation and training, create a detailed plan on a piece of paper or spreadsheet.

The structure of an effective onboarding plan for a sales manager is as follows:

The sales manager training plan can be tailored to suit your needs and goals, but the main thing is that the new employee masters the knowledge and skills that he will encounter in his daily work.

Stages of training a sales manager

Let's look at all the stages in more detail (see figure above):

• Stage No. 1 At this stage, the new employee must receive information related to the structure of the company, its rules, history of founding and, of course, prospects. How important this stage of preparation is is up to you to decide, but in all serious companies it is necessarily present. This helps you understand your importance in the company and its values;

• Stage No. 2 The most important stage is studying your product. Without knowledge of the product, sales turn into empty talk. It is by the level of product knowledge that one can determine the professional competencies of a sales manager. It’s not enough to know your product; you need to have a superficial knowledge of your competitors’ product. This stage is the most time-consuming, although it depends on the complexity of the product. How deeply an intern should delve into the company’s product is up to you to decide, but a beginner should know the basics like the back of his hand;

• Stage No. 3 Interim exams or testing should be mandatory, since it is important for you as a manager to make sure that the new employee takes learning the product seriously. Can be taken both orally and in writing, as well as in the format of online tests;

• Stage No. 4 Studying techniques and sales standards will help the trainee understand: how to talk with customers correctly, how to sell your product correctly, what requirements the manufacturer or employer sets for the customer service process. If your company does not have a book of standards, formulate on paper the ideal model of behavior between a salesperson and a client - these will be your standards. It is important for newcomers to understand what the employer requires of them;

• Stage No. 5 The exam can be conducted in the format given in paragraph No. 3;

• Stage No. 6 A lot of young employees do not have basic skills in using standard office applications. Software that helps make sales and maintain CRM on a computer is being implemented literally everywhere - it automates some processes. The processing time for some operations is reduced and the quality of document flow and reporting is improved.

• Stage No. 7 The exam can be conducted in the format given in paragraph No. 3;

• Stage No. 8 After the product, standards and software have been mastered, you can safely conduct a cross-section of knowledge in the form of role-playing games. They not only help you choose a good salesperson during an interview, but also perfectly show the newcomer’s readiness for practical work with a client. Go through all the stages of selling your product with a new sales manager, you are in the role of a client, and you will understand how much a person is ready to work with clients;

• Stage No. 9 Next comes the practice of working with clients - consultations, first telephone conversations, first sales. During the first week, monitor the seller at all stages to prevent the loss of a client and a decrease in the quality of customer service;

• Stage No. 10 Let's say everything goes well and the seller is ready. What's next? Next comes full-time work, but for the first month, don’t expect great results from a beginner, let him get used to it. A 50% target will be enough to gain momentum;

• Stage No. 11 So, after long and hard work, we see a trained sales manager who is ready to work with any type of client and conclude transactions of any complexity. All you have to do is get used to it.

Conclusion

As you already understand, preparing and training a sales manager is a responsible and very difficult task. A properly drawn up training plan for a sales manager is the key to an effective start to the work of a new employee and high quality customer service. The quality of the employee’s work and your reputation depend on the quality of training. In addition to the internal adaptation of a sales manager, it is advisable to conduct face-to-face training on the basics of customer focus and effective communication, this will greatly increase the level of training of new salespeople.

How do you prepare your salespeople? Write about it in the comments!

90% of quitters make the decision to quit within the first week of their job! Why do you think this happens?

The reason is obvious - many companies lack a competent strategy for adapting new employees. Everyone understands that adaptation of new arrivals is necessary, but how can training be made effective so that the employee quickly joins the team and gets used to the new place? At the same time, won’t you get burned yourself by making the wrong choice?

There are 3 main mistakes in onboarding sales employees: which may lead to dismissal:

Mistake #1

"Honeymoon" stereotype

Imagine that you are hiring a new employee for your sales department. He suits you in all respects: he understands you perfectly, learns everything very quickly, shows great promise... You think that you have finally found a competent professional employee! He, in turn, sees a great development prospect for himself in your company and is also happy with everything.

A month passes (2-3 months or six months). Your opinion about the person changes dramatically, and you think: “How could you hire such a clueless person?!”

It is important to understand that the evaluation of a new employee does not end once the application for employment is signed. It is necessary to consider not only whether the employee can memorize and repeat corporate sales standards, but also whether he will be able to apply this knowledge?

There is an opportunity - hire two employees, so that after a while, if one of them quits for his own reason or does not suit you, you do not have to spend another 2-3 months searching for a new suitable person.

Mistake #2

We teach how to sell, not the company culture

There is an expression: we hire for professional qualities, and fire for personal qualities. When an employee joins a company, he not only learns to do his job well, because in fact, this is not all that is required of him, or rather, not the most important thing. First of all, the adaptation process is an attempt by a new employee to adapt to new conditions and environment.

Every company has its own rules, spoken and unspoken. How seriously is it customary to take the instructions of management, who in the team has a higher priority and who needs to be listened to... An employee either adapts to internal conditions or not, then he will not be able to do his job fully and efficiently.

Mistake #3

Lack of employee evaluation parameters

The third mistake is the lack of a clear system for evaluating an employee after his training. It is imperative to conduct an exam upon completion of training, about which the employee must be warned in advance.

The essence of the exam is to not only assess whether the employee is able to cope with tasks, but, above all, to identify gaps, positive and negative aspects. It is important to determine for yourself whether it is possible to fill these gaps with the help of the company (or a third-party specialist) or whether the employee is not suitable for you at all.

If you manage to avoid these three mistakes, then you will significantly reduce the onboarding time and it will be easier for you to determine what qualities and professional skills a person must have in order to successfully work in your company.

December 10, 2018 HR expert, business consultant, personal growth coach. IP Kruglova A.V.

Individual adaptation plan for account managers

The presented template for an individual adaptation plan for customer service managers is still used in an enterprise of 450 people whose field of activity is the production and sale of tombstones. The production is located in the same city as the central office.

Sales offices are located throughout Russia, respectively, customer service managers are located in these offices. The need for the adaptation procedure was caused by the fact that the enterprise grew by 4.5 in a year and a half, which entailed staff turnover. It should also be taken into account that the management of retail outlets was centralized by the main office (that is, online), which made it difficult both to get to know the enterprise and to train employees. To manage this process, procedures for individual adaptation of employees were urgently introduced.

This procedure resolved a number of issues: controlled communication with the central office through the immediate supervisor, measured the quality of training, assessed the work of the manager, ensured the succession of the manager and the central office in case of dismissal of the immediate supervisor, and over time “settled” the format of the applicant for the position of “work manager” with clients”, reduced the turnover of managers. This plan is connected with the employee adaptation plan in production only by the fact that employee data is contained in one 1C ZUP program.

Individual employee adaptation plan

• Full name of the employee_____________________________________________
• Regional office_______________________________
• Regional department__________________________________________
• Supervisor________________________________________________
• Mentor ___________________________________________________
• HR manager ________________________________________________

PART I.

1. Basic information and activities necessary for the employee to master during the probationary period.

	Basic information or event		Planned result by the end of the probationary period	Responsible
	Meet the team Workplace organization
	Issuance of theoretical basis: Regulations. Employment contract Job description Regulations on the work of the department Company Description
	Completion of training
	Fulfillment of assigned tasks
	Analysis of work, work on errors
	Independent work
	Fixing the material

2. Professional development of the employee during the probationary period.

3. Performance results during the probationary period.

I have read and agree with the induction plan:

On-line sales manager________________________________________________(full name)____________(date)_____________(signature)

Head of on-line sales department________________________________________________(full name)___________(date)______________(signature)

HR manager _________________________________________________(full name)_____________________(date)_________________(signature)

Implementation experience (conclusions):

1. Taking into account the fact that there were retail outlets throughout Russia and most of the certification procedures were carried out online, this system worked well. This can be judged by feedback from the employees themselves during a conversation about loyalty to the enterprise.

2. Taking into account the fact that in a fast-growing enterprise the turnover of personnel is increased, and these are not always managers, to whom this form is intended, sometimes these are their managers - regional managers, the data obtained during the adaptation process is recorded in the 1C ZUP program, they become easily transferable to other managers . Thus, the thread of adaptation measures in relation to one employee is not lost, but is continued by the “next” boss. This approach laid the foundation for a system of employee adaptation at the enterprise and automation of this process.

3. The knowledge testing system embedded in the procedure made it possible to assess the quality of the training center’s work and the quality of the candidate (employee). Some passed the certification better, others worse. After collecting statistics, it was possible to draw conclusions and “tweak” the training and hiring system.

4. After the introduction of this system, staff turnover decreased sharply. This arose because the process became controllable, plus it actually became easier for the employee to fulfill his professional duties, which resulted in a reduction in stressful situations in the workplace when working with a client. Managers began to be able to handle the most complex customer objections, which made them less dependent on the central office.

5. After the introduction of this system, cases of failure to complete the probationary period increased. We don't see anything wrong with this. Let me explain: this system includes quality standards such as employee training. It's no secret that not everyone is equally trainable. If an employee during the adaptation period did not have time to keep up with his colleagues, then we parted with this employee as if he had not passed the probationary period. For each such employee, a full investigation was carried out into the reasons for the ineffectiveness of hiring, conclusions were drawn and implemented. Thus, the candidate format was perfected. It has become abundantly clear who will fail in our system.

6. After successful adaptation, the employee was given the opportunity to undergo certification for professional categories, which gave him the opportunity to increase the salary portion, thereby increasing the entire salary.